Bloody Mary
by MykEsprit
Summary: For most of his life, Blaise has been haunted by the vision of Bloody Mary.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

Written for Death By Quill - Round 1, and it won 2nd place. Thanks to the admins for hosting the event, and much love to Frumpologist for her help in shaping this story!

Warning: Angst, Horror, Tragedy, Character Death, non-HEA

* * *

**Bloody Mary**

* * *

"She had blonde hair, just like you," Pansy said. "What I could see of it from under all that blood, anyway."

Daphne's hand flew up to clutch at her own golden waves. Astoria, who had refused to stay in the nursery, bit down on her thumb.

Pansy's smirk grew wider.

With a sigh, Blaise shut his book and stood from the window seat. "Stop it, Pans. Can't you see you're scaring the baby?"

Astoria's thumb popped out her mouth. "I'm not a baby!" she cried, betrayal evident in her dark, round eyes.

Blaise bent down and gave her a brotherly pat on the shoulder. "I know, Stor. Sorry."

"That's right, Astoria." Pansy snickered. "Blaise just wants me to stop because he's scared."

He huffed. "No, I'm not."

Small fingers curled over Blaise's wrist. "It's okay if you are," Astoria whispered.

He pasted on an affectionate smile. "Thanks. But I'm not scared." He straightened his shoulders and glared at the raven-haired girl. "Because it's not true."

"She's real. I saw her." Pansy tossed her plait over one shoulder. "A lot of people have."

"How?" Daphne asked.

"The way you're supposed to. Turn off all the lights, look into the mirror, and say her name." She held up three fingers, ticking each one off. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."

Blaise snorted. "That's just—" In the corner of his eye, Astoria leaned forward to catch his words. "Malarkey," he mumbled.

"Fine," Pansy spat. "If you don't think she's real, then you'll have no problem going into the next room and saying her name in front of the mirror."

"If it's going to shut you up, then I will." Before the others could protest, he snuck out of the library. Mopsy would be back any minute with snacks, and if she were to find him gone, she would punish herself without mercy. The House Elf took her role as nanny seriously whenever Blaise's mother hosted one of her lavish dinner parties.

A low buzz of conversation floated down the hall from the dining room. Blaise hurried into his mother's study, where an ornate mirror hung above the mantle. He dragged a chair from the corner of the room, careful not to knock anything over as he navigated the dark. Climbing on the velvet upholstery, he gazed into the mirror.

Moonlight shone through the gauzy curtains behind him, casting his face in shadows. He parted his lips, ignoring the warning tingle down his nape. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary."

One breath.

Another.

A third.

Blaise shook his head, laughing softly to himself. "Bloody Mary." He climbed down the chair, turning his back to the cold fireplace as he grabbed hold of an armrest. "More like bloody Pansy—"

_Thump._

He froze. Behind him, the mirror squealed as if skin rubbed along its smooth surface. With his heartbeat thundering in his ears, Blaise turned around. A chill passed through him, more frigid than any wintry wind he had ever felt.

In the glass, a figure reached for him. Its features were faint and grainy, like a photo he had once seen of his great-great-grandmother.

And flowing from the top of its head, cascading down its neck and shoulders was a river of blood.

* * *

He took a deep, shuddering breath, shaking off the cold that seeped from his nightmare and clung to his bones. Slowly, he got out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom.

As he twisted a brassy knob and waited for the hot water to rush out, he gazed at himself in the mirror.

It had been twenty years since that night, and still, the memory haunted him. He had been found cowering behind his mother's desk; since then, he had been ridiculed and dismissed.

His mother said it was a silly superstition.

His then-stepfather told him it was a trick of the eye.

Even Pansy confessed that she had lied about seeing the blood-drenched woman in the mirror. From time to time, she would bring up that night, and it earned him a round of teasing and laughter. Often, he laughed along, not believing it himself.

And then there were the times he spied a flash of red in the reflection.

Steam billowed up as hot water gushed out of the faucet, quickly fogging up the glass. Just as well; he never could look into a mirror for very long.

* * *

"You're going to like this," Ginny said as he strode into their shared office. She set down the parchment she was reading, and her eyes narrowed as she took him in. "Long night?"

Blaise dropped his briefcase on top of his desk. In three strides, he crossed the room and plopped onto the chair across from her. He dragged his fingers through his cropped, tight curls and sighed.

A corner of Ginny's lips twisted wryly. "Back again, is she?"

"My constant companion. The only woman in my life."

She leaned forward, planting an elbow on her desk. "I resent that. I'm here, too, you know."

Something stirred in his chest, as it often did in her presence. Despite his exhaustion, a smile tugged on his face. "I know."

A strand of vibrant, red hair escaped her bun, and she tucked it behind an ear. With a mischievous grin, she tossed a curled parchment to him and leaned back in her seat.

Blaise unfurled the parchment, glancing over the understated Department of Mysteries seal and skimming the report. "They actually found something?"

From the corner of his eye, Ginny's head bobbed with excitement. "Malek's team unearthed the ruins of a castle in the Outer Hebrides. A Muggle castle, nothing now but rock and the odd bit of pottery...except for one _pristine_ room."

He folded down the parchment and cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "Magically sealed?"

Her smile widened. "The same magical signature as Iria."

Blaise scanned Malek's thorough notes on the objects they found when they unsealed the chamber. Iria was one of the most notorious ancient witches to have lived in the region. For years, the Ministry hunted down the objects she imbued with magic, scattered all around the British Isles.

To Blaise, Iria had been a point of obsession since he became an Unspeakable.

" ..._a mirror, two meters long, affixed to the wall_, " he read. " _Oval in shape. The only marking is an eye etched at the top of the silver frame_. " He glanced at his partner. "Fuck."

"They found another one of her mirrors."

"Not just any mirror, Gin." He shook his head. "_ The_ mirror."

* * *

Iria's mirrors were procured by those who hungered for power and had the means to keep its creator satisfied. Kings, queens, clan leaders, merchants—those who could afford to pay the price sought her out.

No two mirrors were alike, and none of them were as powerful nor as dangerous as the one in front of them.

"Damn," whispered Ginny. She rubbed her upper arms. "Did my warming charm fail? How is it so bloody freezing in here?"

Blaise sighed, and the lack of breath condensate confirmed his suspicion.

Ginny waved her wand, causing the tip to glow like coal.

"That's not going to work," he said, eyeing the plain mirror along the wall.

The previous Unspeakables had suspended lanterns near the ceiling before they left their post. Despite the yellow-orange light, the part of the room where the mirror was fixed remained dim, as though it swathed itself in shadows.

A familiar cold crawled from that part of the room, its icy fingers gripping his limbs, digging into his muscles, sinking into his bones.

In the periphery of his vision, Ginny stepped towards the mirror, her hand stretched out in front of her. "That's it."

"Careful." Blaise rushed forward, grabbing her wrist and pulling it down. "Don't get too close."

"That bad?"

"Do you remember Devon?"

She arched an eyebrow.

He nodded. "Worse."

Ginny gave a low whistle. "What's it do again?"

"Supposedly," he said, "it was made for a queen who wanted a way to spy on others. She was worried that her relatives and their descendants would conspire to take the throne from her." He took a subconscious step forward. "So she had Iria make her a mirror that could see into other mirrors."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"It worked too well. The queen could look through any mirror ever made." He glanced at Ginny sidelong. "Or will ever_ be_ made."

Her eyebrows inched up her forehead. "A mirror that could access all of time."

Blaise laughed drily. "Needless to say, it eventually drove the queen mad."

Ginny approached the mirror, her wand up in a defensive pose. "An object with that much power…" Her shoulders hunched up to her ears. "We need to get this back to the Ministry right away."

He parted his lips, ready to agree—

A clamor outside the room interrupted him.

"Are there any other Unspeakables scheduled to arrive?" he asked.

Ginny shook her head. "It's only supposed to be the two of us—"

Green light blinded him momentarily. He blinked.

Ginny lay on the ground, her wand rolling away from her limp fingers.

"_ Ginny!_ " He scrambled for her. A spell grazed his shoulder, and his thick robe hissed from the hit.

Blaise turned around and pointed his wand at the attackers. Clad in dark clothes, they blended into the shadows, only peeking out to throw a spell at him.

Wordlessly, he took them down one by one, uncaring about the severity of curses he used.

Not when his partner…his friend...his…

His…

It was an eternity when the room was finally silent, save for his own ragged breaths. He crawled towards Ginny, ignoring the trail of blood he left on the stone floor.

Gently, he brushed a palm over her long hair, which had fallen out of its bun. It covered her neck and shoulders in thick, red layers. "Ginny." He pressed a tear-stained cheek on the crown of her head and wrapped her in his arms. "Ginny."

* * *

"_Artifact hunters_," Malek had said. Robbers who had been hired to retrieve the mirror. They were spotted circling the vicinity like vultures, and Malek's team had run them out—or so they thought.

They were persistent, though.

And now, they were dead, too.

Blaise stumbled into the bathroom, his fingers clamping onto the nearest sink. He thrust his hands in the stream of cool water, washing away the blood that dried in the crevices of his palms. He glared at his reflection as he scrubbed with the edges of his fingernails.

His superiors assured him he would not suffer any repercussions for the hunters' deaths; he was in a fight for his life.

_They killed Ginny._ It was the only thought that screamed in his head as he took the hunters down. Magic still thrummed in his fingertips at the memory.

_They killed Ginny._ Killed her without a second thought, as though she were an ant beneath their boots.

Ginny's face as he last saw it, pale and stark against her red hair, swam in his vision.

He sniffed loudly, blinking away the tears that clouded his sight.

And yet, she remained—her face superimposed over his reflection.

Skin as blanched as the porcelain sink.

Brown eyes that were shadowed and blurred, as though a wall of fog separated them.

And her hair—long and loose, flowing down the column of her neck and over her shoulders.

Like a river of blood.

* * *

"How?" Malek asked, scurrying behind him.

Blaise tore through their office, searching the cabinets for the items he needed. "Dark magic, it requires a price. The worst ones take a life before the magic can be used." He pushed a wooden bowl at Malek and carried a half dozen jars out. He ran down the hallway, Malek panting at his heels.

"But what do you mean by Ginny being 'trapped'?"

"When she died—" Blaise swallowed. "When her soul left her body," he amended, "the mirror must have taken it. And this mirror—it's not just any mirror, magic or no. It can access any other mirror at any given point in time."

They reached the holding room; inside, the mirror hung on the wall as if it had been there for centuries.

"I know she's in there," Blaise mumbled as he plucked the bowl from Malek's grasp and set it on the ground. Swiftly, he measured the ingredients and threw them in. "I saw her. I've been seeing her my whole life."

He glanced up, finding Malek's gaze upon him.

Worry.

Grief.

Pity.

"She's in there," Blaise said. "She's in there, and she needs me." With a flick of his wand, he set the contents of the bowl on fire and inhaled deeply. Old magic reached into his chest and gripped his heart.

"What are you doing?"

"A spell I found in one of Iria's books. I don't know if it will work, but...it has to." He stood up, grasping Malek's shoulder as he looked him in the eye. "Don't let them do anything to Ginny's body until we get back."

"'We'? What do you mean—"

Before Malek could finish, Blaise ran towards the wall and jumped into the mirror.

* * *

When he was five years old, Blaise fell through a patch of thin ice as he was skating on the pond behind the old manor.

The shock was instantaneous. His muscles locked—thankfully so, for it prevented him from inhaling a lungful of water.

Jumping into the mirror was just like falling through the ice—only much, _much_ worse.

When he came to, he found himself prone on the hard ground. His chest burned; he forced air into his lungs, cold and sharp, like needles going down his trachea.

Blaise struggled to his feet. He was surrounded by fog; and in between the thick blanket of white, there were glimpses of scenes unfamiliar to him.

A woman fixing her hair by candlelight.

A pair of children fighting on a long seat, black harnesses crossed over their torsos.

The skyline of a city, angular and bright and—he was quite sure—not yet in existence.

Blaise had no idea how long he'd been here. No sense of place or time.

He only had one thing to do, and he didn't know how long he had left to do it. He cupped his hands at the sides of his mouth and yelled, "Ginny!"

Blaise ran into the dense fog, ignoring the flickering scenes that beckoned to him. For days or minutes or hours or centuries, he screamed her name. With each unanswered call, hope slipped from his heart.

And then, faintly: "Blaise!"

He whipped around, following the sound.

"Blaise!"

His feet pounded on the ground as he dashed.

In the distance, through the fog, he spied her bright red hair. "Ginny!"

She ran towards him, and in the space of a blink, she was in his arms.

"Is it really you? _Is it really you?_ " she asked, her fingers flying to the sides of his face; over his hair; down the front of his black robes. "I saw you. I saw you everywhere, and you couldn't hear me."

His fingers curled into her hair as he pulled her close. "I'm here now."

She pressed her face against his chest. "Where are we? What happened?"

"We were attacked. You were hit, and then you...were trapped in the mirror."

Ginny glanced up at him, fear bleeding into her eyes. "Merlin. I'm dead."

Blaise clutched her closer. "Not if I can help it." Threading their fingers together, he gave her a reassuring nod. "Come on."

They sprinted in the direction he prayed was correct—back to the mirror, where Malek was hopefully still waiting for them.

"We've got to get you back to your body."

She bit her bottom lip. "How are we going to do that?"

He glanced away. "I don't know yet. I'm sure we'll—_ugh!_ " A shadow tackled him to the ground, and he tugged Ginny down with him.

"Where do you think you're going?" Three more shadows appeared, circling them.

As Blaise took in their faces, he saw the shadows for what they were.

Vultures.

The artifact hunters he had killed in blind vengeance.

Two of them hauled Blaise to his feet while the others restrained Ginny.

"Leave her alone!" Blaise growled.

A punch landed on his jaw, and he fell back to the ground.

"This is your fucking fault!" a hunter said. He reeled a foot back and kicked Blaise in the abdomen.

Blaise curled into a ball as hit after hit landed on his body. Pain surged through him—but none more sharply than the one growing in the center of his chest.

The spell. It squeezed at his heart like a final, desperate grasp before fading into oblivion.

"Ginny," he croaked, extending his hand out for her. The hunters held her firmly in place, even as she struggled to get to him.

His heart stuttered.

_"Ginny!"_

As his vision darkened, Ginny wrestled from her captors' clutches and lunged for him.

* * *

Hands felt around his neck and wrists.

"Ginny?" He coughed.

"Blaise."

His eyes blinked open.

Malek's panicked gaze burrowed into his. "Blaise—mate—" His expression gave way to relief. "_Fuck._ I thought you were dead."

Blaise propped himself on his elbow, glancing around the room. Along the wall, the silver frame hung; below it, shards of the broken mirror were scattered like confetti. "Ginny?" He scrambled to his feet. "Where's Ginny?"

Malek shook his head slowly. "Ginny's dead. Remember?"

"No." He gasped, pedaling back towards the door. "No. I found her. I got her back." He ran out, heading to the room where Ginny was laid. He threw the heavy door open. "Ginny!"

In the center of the room, a body lay still under a white sheet.

"Unspeakable Zabini." The head of the department shuffled towards him and grasped his elbow. "Zabini—what is—"

Blaise yanked his arm out of the man's grasp. He spun around and dashed to the bathroom. Locking the door behind him, he flicked the lights off with a wave of his hand. He clutched to the sides of the sink as he leaned towards the mirror. "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!"

He waited.

Waited.

"Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,_ Bloody Mary!_" he yelled.

Still, the only thing in the mirror was his haunted reflection.

His eyes fluttered closed, and he pressed his forehead against the cool glass. "Ginny," he whispered. "Ginny. I'm so sorry, Ginny."

His heart thundered in his ears.

Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks.

And then—a chill kiss against his forehead.

_"Ginny. "_

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are always appreciated!


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